The project European Colonial Heritage Modalities in Entangled Cities (ECHOES) is supported by the European Commission’s Engaging Together Globally scheme (H2020-SC6-ENG-GLOBALLY-2016-2017). Running for three years and starting in February 2018, it is carried out by researchers based at the Universities of Hull, Aarhus, Amsterdam, Rennes II, Warsaw, and the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra.

ECHOES addresses a pressing dilemma at the heart of contemporary Europe: the fact that while the history of empires and colonialism undoubtedly constitutes a shared European past, this past remains strangely silent in official narratives about Europe’s ‘heritage’. The project argues that the EU urgently needs not just to acknowledge this dilemma but to reflexively and progressively include it at the heart of its identity. ‘Europeanizing’ difficult colonial heritage is becoming all the more necessary today as the EU operates in increasingly global contexts, relationships, and geographies, where its ongoing ‘deficit’ towards accepting colonialism as a part of European history collides with the palpable ‘surplus’ of colonial memory in much of the outside world with which Europe grows ever more entangled. ECHOES therefore proposes that the memory of colonialism needs to find its place in contemporary European heritage debates, and will place European and non-European cities still imbued with manifold traces of the colonial past at the heart of its engagement with heritage practices.

This postdoctoral position based at the University of Warsaw falls within the work package devoted to ‘City Museums and Multiple Colonial Pasts’ that is overseen by Dr. Joanna Wawrzyniak of the University of Warsaw and co-led by Prof. Elizabeth Buettner from the University of Amsterdam. The international research team will examine how the Amsterdam Museum, the Museum of Warsaw, and the re-emerging Shanghai History Museum take up the challenge of presenting and interrogating European colonial heritage, situated as they are at the crossroads of national, urban, and international historical narratives.

Description of work

The postdoc particular focus will be on the Shanghai heritage culture. S/he will work within a team of researchers, examining the evolution of contemporary city museums in a postcolonial context with relation to the ECHOES main questions. Her/his obligations will include:

1. involvement with the development of an analytical framework for a comparative museum analysis;

2. exploring how Shanghai’s relations with (post)colonial Europe are reflected in the city’s heritage landscape. S/he will closely collaborate with the researchers from the Fudan University and practitioners of the re-emerging Shanghai History Museum and will do research on its history, priorities, practices, and narratives;

3. doing a combination of archive work, interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai;

4. writing reports and academic articles;

5. travelling to and presenting papers at conferences abroad (inside and ideally also outside Europe);

6. building and maintaining excellent relations among researchers and museum practitioners involved in the project;

7. co-organizing workshops, conferences, and other events, and taking responsibility for some project administrative work. The postdoc is expected to participate in an International Workshop on Methodology and Heritage planned in Warsaw in September 2018.

Office of the Dean, Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, Warsaw University

(room 170, 3rd floor)

ul. Nowy Świat 69,

00-927 Warszawa

Poland

Only complete applications meeting formal requirements will be processed. Information on the results of the application process will be sent to candidates per e-mail.

This application process constitutes the first stage of the recruitment and employment procedure for the position of an academic researcher stipulated by the Charter of the University of Warsaw (Art. 88- 91a, Art. 93-94). A positive outcome of the application process is the basis for further procedure.

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